Church Voices

One of the things that amazes me is how quickly you can do things, that used to take forever. Paying bills is a great example. It used to take at least a couple of days from when you sent off the check to make sure it got there on time. And then it’d be up to a five days before the check would actually hit your bank account. Call it a week to a week and a half all told. Now, you can hit the website for your cell phone provider and have your billed payed in minutes from home.

Or, consider how long you’re willing to wait for a friend when meeting for lunch. I can remember in high school, before cell phones had proliferated to the point where not having one is the exception, thinking to myself “I’ll give him 20 minutes before I leave”. Now, if someone is two minutes late I’m on my phone getting in their ear to see what’s going on.

My most recent phone I bought is a Blackberry. I bought it because it was relatively cheap for a smartphone and was the only smartphone that AT&T would allow me to buy without forcing me into a full-on data plan. The reason why most people have a Blackberry is because it creates opportunities to work and so they (or usually their company) are willing to pay for an expensive piece of hardware and for expensive data plans because it more than makes up for its cost in productivity. But that productivity comes at a price. That price is that every nook and cranny of your life is now filled with productivity. That can be a good thing.

It can also be a very, very bad thing. While we are more productive, can do things that used to require planning from home in the blink of an eye, and minimize the amount of time we waste waiting around for late, but beloved friends it also deprives us of time to reflect, meditate and de-compress.

Consider for a moment that you are a part of the early church, your name is James, or Mary and you’ve got to meet your business partner in Jerusalem in three days. So you leave on your camel with a couple of your employees and family members to go do business. What do you do for that three day journey that is little more than the rise and fall of your camel’s gait? There’s no electronic devices to help you pass the time, not even a bound book that you could easily bring along with you (being a part of the merchant class we’ll assume you’re one of the few people able to read). So what do you do? You’ve got two options — spend some time reflecting on whatever it is you reflect on, or spend some time talking to your employees and family members about whatever it is you talk to your employees and family members.

Lets take it a step further. Because you’re a part of the church you want to spend time reflecting on Christ. So you get out your Bible… except there’s not yet a New Testament written down. And you sure aren’t wealthy enough to own your own copy of the Old Testament, and even if you did it’d be in scroll form, and so difficult to read anywhere but home. Not to mention that because its a scroll, there’s sure no flipping around to the bit you’d prefer to read.

So, what you’re left with is whatever you manage to hold in your head from the gathering of the saints earlier in the week. So for three days your left to either reflect on what you manage to remember from earlier in the week, you talk to your family and employees about what you’ve all managed to collectively retain. As the journey goes on you’ve all mulled these teachings over in your minds, and worked them over in your conversation, and worked out how that teaching applied to their shared lives and experiences.

Now, however, all that travel time, all that waiting, is spent working, or being entertained. And while something is gained by it, something is also lost.

Recently I’ve taken to playing basketball again after a 10-12 year hiatus. The reason is practical. My church has started a Friday night basketball game that gives me the chance to get to know people as well as exercise in a way that doesn’t bore me to tears. That in conjunction with our after school program where we also have basketball going on has me playing on a regular basis.

The general style of our league is much closer to thug than smooth. There’s a lot of hard fouls, and very few of them are called. The first month or so I wore glasses, they were knocked off at least once a night. I switched to contacts after that. The thing is it wasn’t done out of malice and there was a sense of camaraderie among pretty much everyone even though we switched teams several times a night.

Barak Obama is a big fan of hoops. So much so that political types have all taken it up to jockey for a shot at playing with him and getting some political leverage through balling. I have to admit it was a little jarring to see this picture:

I mean, if your playing hoops with the President, what do you do if he decides to post you up nad go strong to the basket? Are you willing to get a little chippy with him? Would you push him around a bit? Deliberately foul him if he has an easy basket? Its just a weird bizarre situation that makes basketball with the President profoundly different than basketball with the fellas on Friday night.

And that’s just the thing. Power changes everything. When there’s a power differential among people, everyone knows it. It colors every single facet of the relationship. It makes basketball and meals take on a washed out, formal tenor.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
John 13.12-17

That’s the thing about the church. There shouldn’t be such a thing as a difference in power in the church. You shouldn’t worry about violating unspoken rules of formality when eating, playing ball, or worshiping with anyone in the church.

From imonk:

Despite his brilliant intellect, Edwards seems to be about more about speculation and revivalism than the Gospel. His desire to awaken unconverted church members sounds very familiar to me, and his rhetorical intensity is familiar ground as well. I heard it all in the front row of fundamentalistic revivalism growing up. An inscrutable angry God demanding we wake up and realize we’re going to hell. Yes, church member who thinks he’s saved, that means you.

….

The balance of the Reformation Gospel is this: we see God best in Jesus. Not in speculations, relentless logic or metaphorical bombshells. God revealed himself in Jesus. It is the kindness of God that appears and saves us when we cannot save ourselves. It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. It was the Gospel story of the crucifixion, not of sinners in the hands of an angry God, that caused 3,000 to be “cut to the heart.”

From here:

Dear Christians and other folks of the Pro-Life persuasion who are cheering on a sinful act,

IT IS NOT OKAY THAT THE ABORTION DR. GUY WAS MURDERED! STOP YOUR GLEEFUL GLOATING YOU PIGS!

Signed,
He who should be murdered for his sin every day

FWIW, I’m pro-life and I find both the act and the response from from of our fellow believers to be unbelievably hypocritical and unfaithful.